


First Blood

by trepkos



Category: Arthur of the Britons
Genre: Fights, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-29 07:15:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1002484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trepkos/pseuds/trepkos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur has his first real fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Blood

Killing another man is never easy. It gets harder every time, because now, Arthur understands that for every man slain, there’s a mother, distraught; a brother, bereft; a son or daughter, orphaned. 

But that first time he drew his sword, and stained it red, he felt – for one brief, shining, terrifying moment – that he was born for this: to fight and kill.

Llud hadn’t wanted him to fight so soon, but Arthur had persuaded Kai to take him along with Neb and the others, on a hunting trip. He’d felt so grown-up as they’d clattered through the gate, and pounded down the causeway, wide-eyed, whooping, urging their horses faster still. 

He’d looked across at Kai, and their eyes met; Kai grinned that grin of his, that seems to steal the warmth from the sun, and claim it for its own – and off they went!

But game proved hard to find – harder to catch. Chasing deer, they strayed far from the woods of home, and as they crashed into a clearing, Saxons came upon them from all sides.

Before he knew it, Arthur’s sword gleamed in his hand. One slash: one Saxon fell, blood spurting from his throat; another, skewered through the collarbone. He freed his sword – lethal extension of his arm – and slashed the air.

Let them come! He was invincible! 

Looking around for more, he saw a burly Saxon struggling with Neb – trying to pull him from his horse; Neb yelled, hacked at his attacker, severed an arm. The man fell silently, and Neb – his face ugly with triumph, spattered with blood – dealt a death blow.

As Arthur turned his head away, another Saxon – an old man who tried to run – stumbled and fell, and Amren thundered past, and rode him down. Flailing, and broken by the horse’s hooves, the old man screamed, and Amren, panic in his eyes, pulled his grey gelding round; rode over him again, but still he twitched, and let out cries and whimpers. Didn’t stop till after the third time.

Off to his left, Arthur saw Kai dismount, and finish off a downed warrior, then look up, blank-faced. And to his right, Erin, wild-eyed – two corpses at his feet; his sword held out before him – yelled, “Is that all of them? Did we get them all?” And someone else was shouting incoherently. 

“Arthur! It’s over.” 

Kai was shaking him, and Arthur realised – he was the one still yelling. Then Kai’s face began to blur.

“Breathe, Arthur! Breathe!” 

He dragged in a lungful of air. His heart sounded like a galloping horse. His knees felt weak; he put a hand on Kai’s shoulder. 

“Are you alright?”

“Yes. I’m …” 

“You’re wounded.” 

Kai knelt beside him, and started ripping cloth from his own shirt.

Arthur looked down, and watched Kai binding a stab wound to his calf he hadn’t felt. He didn’t remember getting off his horse, either, but there she was, patiently cropping grass between the … between the bodies of the men he’d killed. 

The first was not much older than himself – Kai’s age; the second, about the same age as Llud. He’d stopped two lives – men just like him. His father’s maxim echoed in his mind: “A man on horseback is worth ten on foot.” 

Not to their families.

He dropped, retching, to his knees. 

“Shhh. It’s alright. It’s alright.” Kai, still kneeling beside him, put an arm around him. “They’d have killed us, if we hadn’t killed them.”

Arthur took a few heaving breaths, and wiped a hand across his mouth, then let Kai help him to his feet. 

Amren, no better off than Arthur, stood silent, staring straight ahead, while Erin cleaned his blade with deft efficiency. 

Following Erin’s lead, Arthur bent to clean his sword, and saw that bedrolls and broken cooking pots lay strewn among the bodies; that one of the dead men had ended up with his head in the remains of a campfire. This was no ambush. They must have ridden into a little Saxon camp. 

Carefully sheathing his sword, Arthur murmured: “They’d have killed us, if we hadn’t killed them.” 

Neb, still bright-eyed with battle, slapped him on the back. “You’ve killed your first Saxons! May you kill many more!” He glanced at Kai. “No offence.”

Kai’s jaw clenched, but he nodded abruptly. “None taken.”

“They’d have killed us, if we hadn’t killed them,” Arthur said again, half to himself.

“Too right!” Neb rolled the elder of Arthur’s victims over with his foot, reached down, took a knife from the man’s dead hand, and tested the balance. “That’ll do me, alright!” He glanced at Arthur. “Unless you want it?”

Arthur shook his head.

“Go on – you ought to –”

“Leave it,” Kai said.

“But –”

“Leave it!”

With a puzzled look, Neb let the knife fall from his hand.

Arthur just stood staring at it. “They’d have …”

Kai shook him again, and made him turn away; made Arthur look him in the eye, instead. “Get on your horse!” He gestured at the others. “Come on – all of you! Let’s get out of here.”

~~

Later, Arthur tried to recall the faces of the men he’d killed.

“I can’t see them,” he said softly. “Llud – I killed two men today, and I can’t see their faces.”

“Kai told me all about it,” Llud said brusquely. “You did what you had to do, and did it well. Accept the gift of forgetfulness when you’re lucky enough to receive it. I’m proud of you.” He squeezed Arthur’s shoulder. “So would your father be.”

But Arthur wasn’t proud. He fetched the stubs of two candles, set them on a plate, and lit them. 

Kai came to sit beside him. “Light one for mine, as well.”

They sat together, watching till the candles had burned down.

~~

**Author's Note:**

> First archived here: 13 October 2013.  
> Revised: 6 March 2016.
> 
> If you love the series, please join the [Arthur of the Britons Community](http://community.livejournal.com/arthur_britons/profile) at Livejournal.com


End file.
